Karl Marx Voted Greatest Thinker of the Millennium

Marx took the top spot by a wide margin followed by Einstein, Newton, and Darwin, in second, third and fourth places.

Revolutionary writer Karl Marx has topped a BBC News Online poll to find the greatest thinker of the millennium.

The nineteenth century writer won September’s vote with a clear margin, pushing Albert Einstein, who had led for most of the month, into second place.

The top 10 included philosophers Immanuel Kant and Rene Descartes as well as twentieth century scientist Stephen Hawking.

The vote was the ninth of BBC News Online’s monthly Your Millennium series. In October you can vote for the greatest explorer of the last thousand years. […] Karl Marx is probably the most influential socialist thinker to emerge in the nineteenth century and one of the founders of communism. […] BBC News Online readers from across the world took part in the millennium poll.

Dag Thoresen from Norway, said: “Karl Marx has inspired thousands of liberation struggles. He was the father of modern political thinking.”

And Jyotsna Kapur from the USA said: “Marx analysed best the working of capitalism. Given that that is the system that characterises the world at the end of the twentieth century his work is as relevant to understanding the world we live in as it was for understanding the nineteenth century.”